Official Lost Podcast transcript/November 28, 2005
PandoraX is responsible for this transcription. It is one in the series of the Official Lost Podcasts. ---- [Opening Lost theme] Kris White: Welcome to the Official Lost Podcast. Today we sit down with Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, or, "Triple-A", as he's affectionately known. And yes, he does change tires. Later we'll turn it over to executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to discuss the next episode, "What Kate Did". music Kris White: Of all the tail section survivors, none is currently more fascinating than Adewale. Born in London, England, Adewale regularly split his time between the U.K. and Nigeria. He quickly rose in notoriety after being cast in Congo, and went on to star in numerous hit films and TV shows, including playing opposite our own Harold Perrineau in Oz. clip of Mr. Eko telling Sawyer his name. Kris White: It's true it will be at least a while before we get the opportunity to learn more about Adewale's fascinating character, Mr. Eko. But that doesn't stop us from going behind-the-scenes, this week, to learn a little more about the actor behind the man, who truly embodies Roosevelt's saying: "Walk softly and carry a big stick." Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: When I read the part, it was kind of carved for me. And in some strange way, it's like what you go through in your life—the challenges were present in that character. It offered me the challenges that I wanted to take in its own life, you know what I mean? It was a convenient vehicle for me to deal with issues and areas of my life that I thought were important. I've done TV before and very similar to this framework whereby you just roll with it. Depending on what kind of person you are. It could stress you out if you're a control freak, or it could be liberating because you just take it as it comes. It's a bit of both with me. I have that perfectionist side and I like to know what's going on. At the same time, you get more variety in the character, because you don't know where it's going to go, and it becomes just organic and you go with the flow. It's all based on the interaction with the other characters, when it starts to grow and formulate. A lot of the time you can't really predict or premeditate that, you just have to let it happen, and you try to catch it. It can be very progressive and positive experience if you're not too much of a control freak. Laughs. clip of Eko telling Ana Lucia that they have to cut through the jungle. Kris White: Like many of the newcomers to the cast, Adewale wasn't given much information about his new character, Mr. Eko. But that didn't stop him from using what little information he did know. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: In all honesty, they told me—I can't tell you, 'cause they'll fire me they said. That's where it's at—they're very anal about this. Which I find understandable, but I find it really comical. Laughs 'Cause they're always telling me, "Go do it, but shut your mouth." But anyone who knows me, I can't keep my mouth shut. But no, they told me. The thing about what they told me—is it changes. What they told me once they saw the rushes, once they saw my actual performance or actual dynamics with characters, it's already changed from what they told me. So, in truth, in my eyes, I don't have a clue. I think it'd be great, it was good. It'd have to be. Kris White: Of course, not all the faces in the cast were new to him. Adewale had worked with Harold Perrineau before, who plays Michael. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje: It's good to know somebody here. Also, he's East coast flavor. If you know Hawaii—Hawai'-EE, as it's pronounced—it's very different. I've made a huge relocation from Europe—London—to here, so it's very different. To know somebody with your flavor is helpful for the integration. On the work tip, it's cool too. In Oz we didn't have too many scenes, we got a lot more stuff in this one. It's interesting—a lot of stuff that we're doing is not necessarily nice with him. Laughs. It's a fine balance, but we'll find it. clip of Eko breaking his vow of silence and comforting Ana Lucia. Kris White: Peeling back layers to reveal characters may be the actor's job, but creating those layers falls squarely on the writers. As we are now wont to do, we now turn it over to executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, to explore what's on their mind in creating this week's episode, "What Kate Did". Carlton Cuse: Hi, this is Carlton Cuse. Damon Lindelof: And Damon Lindelof. Carlton Cuse: Welcome to our podcast, which will be a discussion, a little bit about last week's episode, "Collision", and this week's episode, "What Kate Did". Damon Lindelof: Ah yes, and what an interesting title for an episode. "What Kate Did". What could it possibly be about, Carlton? laughs. Before we discuss that, Carlton … Carlton Cuse: Could it be about what Kate did? Damon Lindelof: It would be, indeed. For so many years people have asked us, "What did Kate do?" So, instead of beating around the bush, we decided to come out and just do that. Carlton Cuse: It took us like two days to break the episode, but a week to come up with the title. Damon Lindelof: Yeah, that was tough. Carlton Cuse: But let's start with "Collision" which is an episode, hopefully, that a lot of you have already seen. This was a big episode for us because this was an episode where finally the two camps merge—the tailies and the fuselage survivors all unite at the end. Personally, seeing the very beautifully shot show by Stephen Williams—the dog, the dog got me. When Michael and Vincent were reunited, that's when my own personal waterworks started. Damon Lindelof: The dog moments on the show are a classic cavalcade of tearjerkers. When the dog goes swimming out after the raft, then when Shannon's with the dog—Vincent is totally money. There's no ifs, ands or buts about that. Other than the merge last week, and those great reunions between Bernard and Rose, we were really invested in Sun and Jin seeing each other again. Arguably one of Carlton's and my favorite moments on the show ever is when Eko and Locke meet for the first time and say hello to each other … Carlton Cuse: Let's do our version I'll do it. Damon Lindelof: You wanna be Locke? Carlton Cuse: I'll be Locke. Damon Lindelof: No, you should be … Carlton Cuse: No, no, you do the better Eko. Damon Lindelof: Ok … you be Locke. Carlton Cuse: This is truly one of those things—we literally watch this thing over and over again in terms of personal, sheer amusement. This moment when Eko and Locke meet is one of our complete personal highlights. Damon Lindelof: Because we know what's coming, which is a lot. Carlton Cuse: There's the dripping of water from the back of the tunnel. Damon Lindelof: Locke has just entered the code and we hear the flip-flip-flip of the Numbers back to 108. Carlton Cuse: He walks into the tunnel and sees Eko standing there. They stare at each other for a long time and then he says, "Hello." Damon Lindelof: Then Eko stares back at Locke and he goes Pause "Hello." Carlton Cuse: It's just the greatest thing ever. Damon Lindelof: That's just good writing. That is quality writing, really. Carlton Cuse: You can see how we amuse ourselves in our job here. Damon Lindelof: We were supposed to pick it up and move along. Again, big shout-outs to last week—we feel that Michelle did a beautiful job, and hopefully the audience has a much better understanding of why she is as tough as she is, and not just her vocation, which is that she is a cop, but also she was shot many times, and this caused her to lose her unborn child, which caused many emotional issues, many of which we'll hopefully be seeing as the series goes on. Carlton Cuse: Hopefully coming out of this episode the audience now understands a lot more about her character and maybe we've developed a little bit more sympathy for Ana Lucia, at least rounded her out, at least offered her some alternative perspectives on who she is and why she is the person that she is. To go back to something that Damon was saying, this Locke-Eko moment is a great foreshadowing of things to come. Going forward in the series, the relationship between Locke and Eko is going to be really a central focus of the show. The different viewpoints that those two characters have is something that will really come into play as we go downstream. Damon Lindelof: We still don't really know anything about Eko at this point other than the fact that he carries this stick around with him—that has significance. He's a man of few words, but those words are significant for who he himself is. His flashbacks will be coming up after the new year. Then you'll get a much fundamental idea of why he and Locke are the seminal, mystical relationships powering us through the end of the season. Adewale and Terry in scenes together, you're going to see another one this Wednesday, it's just magnetic. If you thought our reenactment of the "hello scene" was good, wait'll next week. Carlton Cuse: We're planning to do several script pages for you. When you were referring to the stick, would that be a clue for the audience to pay attention to the stick? Damon Lindelof: I would watch the stick. It started in "The Other 48 Days" when he plucks the stick from the jungle in the morning after he kills the two Others, we see that he's writing on it. Libby is asking, "What is he writing on that stick?" Carlton Cuse: And why? Damon Lindelof: And … why? Carlton Cuse: I think the answers to those questions will give you a big clue as to who Eko is, and his future role on the show. Damon Lindelof: Also, we'll be doing an episode that features the stick's flashbacks, the whole teaser starts as just an acorn. Laughs. Carlton Cuse: Exactly. Damon Lindelof: Exactly. Carlton Cuse: Fanatically, it's about how the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree. Damon Lindelof: Right, exactly. That's a good title for it, actually. But none of that has anything to do with Kate. I think, one of the things… Carlton Cuse: Is that it? Is that all we're going to debrief about "Collision"? Well, I will say this though. I think the Sayid-Ana Lucia relationship was also something really important, going forward. Obviously there are some intense emotions between these two characters. I think that that will all carry forward into the upcoming episodes in ways that maybe are different than people might think. Damon Lindelof: They probably would have a lot in common if not for the "I killed the woman you loved" part. But let's talk about Kate for a minute, please. I think one of the interesting—you've probably seen some promos for tonight's episode, and you're probably thinking, "Those sneaky people over at ABC," or "Those sneaky writers on Lost." And to that we say, "No, we're not sneaky. We are as unsneaky as we are sneaky!" But not tonight. Carlton Cuse: We felt like it was time to finally reveal, and there may be some misunderstanding about this, but this is the episode that will reveal what Kate's original crime was, the reason she was on the run from the US Marshal. This is the episode that tells us what Kate did, what set her off on her life as a fugitive. Damon Lindelof: And why. So, I think one of the— Carlton Cuse: Well, the "what" is answered at the beginning of the episode. Damon Lindelof: Very quickly. Carlton Cuse: And the "why" is the mystery that unfolds over the course of the episode. Damon Lindelof: Exactly. We both think what the primary criticism over is that the show does not give up its mysteries easily, and that is learned to internalize. At the same time, when it's time to give up a mystery, it's time to get back into the love-triangle. Sawyer is back, and here, Sawyer is sick, very sick. And Kate has an emotional investment in Sawyer. And here is Jack, who she has basically been evolving in her relationship with in Sawyer's absence. So, given that … Carlton Cuse: And not expecting Sawyer to be returning. Damon Lindelof: Right. Exactly. Or expecting to be rescued. Other than the fact that Sun found the bottle, which they're fairly pessimistic about. Upon Sawyer's return a big flood of emotions comes in for Kate. It resulted in tonight's episode. We turned around and said, "We've known now …" Carlton Cuse: It's more a torrent of emotion. Damon Lindelof: Torrent. Yes. A tempest? Carlton Cuse: A tempest? Yeah, it could have been a tempest. Damon Lindelof: In any case, now is the time to say, "The audience needs to know." Carlton Cuse: Damon off Oh, sorry. Damon Lindelof: A tsunami of emotion. The audience needs to know. Carlton Cuse: Cyclonic wave of emotion. Sorry, sorry. Damon Lindelof: There you go. Well, that's the same as a tsunami in many ways. Laughs. Carlton Cuse: No! A cyclone is like a hurricane in the Southern Hemisphere. Damon Lindelof: They are in the Southern Hemisphere. A cyclonic wave of emotion. The alternate title of the episode. It is time to know what Kate did, and you will find out in a few days. Carlton Cuse: Evangeline, I think she has never been better than in this episode. She is really, really, really good. Damon Lindelof: Astonishingly good. Carlton Cuse: We really loved it. We were really pleased with the incredible job that Paul Edwards did directing the episode. Paul's our camera operator, and he is really one of the cornerstones of our crew, and we like to give a shout-out to him under the guidance of Jack Bender, who is our executive director during Hawaii, who oversees the physical production of the show. The show is completely shot on location in Hawaii, and even these flashbacks which will traverse a cross-section of middle-America. Everything is shot in Hawaii. They do a remarkable job of finding ways to double for places like Iowa in the middle of Hawaii. The other person who deserves a shout-out is Kevin Blank, our visual effects coordinator, special effects coordinator, who is able to put in effects that you never see as an audience. To make something look like Iowa, or something look like Sydney, Australia. Damon Lindelof: Jean Higgins should also have a shout-out in the Hawaii trio, because she's the one who figures out how to execute it all. Back to Paul, who directed this episode after operating the camera for a year-and-a-half, we think he did a beautiful job. Carlton Cuse: He's the cornerstone of the "guy on set", because we have alternating photographers—Michael Bonvillain and John Bartley. They are the DPs on every other episode. Paul is the guy really providing the visual continuity of the show. He's a really smart, creative artist, and we gave him a shot at directing. With Jack's guidance, he really did a fantastic job on this episode, and we're really happy about it. Damon Lindelof: Also—we're going to cheese out—you're going to get a big chunk of mythology this episode. The DHARMA orientation film we saw in the third episode of Season 2—there's been a lot of speculation about what it means, and pushing the button, and we'll be watching that film again tonight. Well, not tonight, but when it airs. Carlton and I watch it every night, actually. laughs. Just 'cause we love it so much. In any case, that film, we'll be looking at it a whole new way. Because the people who have traversed the Island and not seen it—obviously Michael has not seen it, and Jin has not seen it, and the tail section survivors haven't seen it either. So their reaction to seeing this film will probably be fairly interesting to watch. Carlton Cuse: I think it's fair to say that "new information will be gleaned". Damon Lindelof: New information will be gleaned. Carlton Cuse: Cleaned. Damon Lindelof: Let's get to some questions, shall we? Carlton Cuse: Let's do that. Damon Lindelof: Carlton, if I may start. "Niella999". Just one short of a thousand. Sorry, Niella. Good luck with that. Asks, "Can we expect flashbacks from any of the guest stars on Lost like Desmond, Rose and Danielle." I guess Danielle would be Rousseau. Carlton Cuse: Rousseau, yes. We call her Rousseau. Damon Lindelof: We do, yeah. We are not on a first-name basis. Carlton Cuse: Pardon. Damon Lindelof: Pardonez-moi, Niella. Nuff nuff nuff. Carlton Cuse: Niella. So, you and accent Danielle. Laughs. Yes, that is an extremely good question. We think it would actually be great to do that at a certain point. Particularly with Desmond. Desmond will be coming back. We're very interested in knowing more about Desmond. Damon Lindelof: Where did he run off to? If he thought not pushing the button was going to be catastrophic, why would he run away? Where would he be going? Carlton Cuse: The world's still going to be destroyed a couple of miles from the Island. Damon Lindelof: It wouldn't make much sense for him to be running off. Carlton Cuse: Unless he had another plan. Damon Lindelof: What would that plan be? Carlton Cuse: Hmmm. That's an interesting thing to think about. Damon Lindelof: So fascinating. Carlton Cuse: Assuming he did have another plan and somehow ends up back in the encampment. Damon Lindelof: We'd wanna know what that plan was. Carlton Cuse: Right. Damon Lindelof: We'd wanna see some flashbacks. Carlton Cuse: The whole history of him down there in the Hatch, pushing the button. Damon Lindelof: And the mysterious Kelvin, who he refers to. Carlton Cuse: Right. Kelvin, who was the original hatch-man. Damon Lindelof: At least that's what he says. On Lost, you never know. Carlton Cuse: I think that would be really cool to explore. If you guys liked "The Other 48 Days", maybe you will see an episode downstream where you will see something out of the Island's past. Damon Lindelof: That would be cool. Carlton Cuse: Yeah. Damon Lindelof: With Rousseau we've always talked about … Carlton Cuse: Doing an episode entirely in French. Damon Lindelof: Yes, doing an episode entirely in French. She's referred to all sorts of misadventures that she's had on the Island before we ran into her including the sickness that swept through her research crew, the murder of her lover Robert, and most importantly, the loss of Montand's arm, which is the story I've been itching to tell. Laughs. Carlton Cuse: Exactly. Is there any connection between the loss of Montand's arm, and the fact that Dr. Marvin Candle has a fake hand? Damon Lindelof: I dunno, is there? We also found a glass eye in the Arrow Station. People just lose body parts easily on the Island. Carlton Cuse: Exactly. Damon Lindelof: It isn't a widely known fact that Marvin Candle has a fake hand. You actually have to watch the film a fair amount of times, so I think that's a good nugget of podcast exclusivity that you just downloaded there. Carlton Cuse: Wow, that's cool. And would it be possible that in a future episode we would discover why Marvin Candle has a fake hand? Damon Lindelof: I suppose anything's possible, I guess. But unlikely. laughs. In any case I think we probably should wrap it up. I know we have a lot of— Carlton Cuse: Wait, I wanna ask you one more question. Damon Lindelof: One more question. Carlton Cuse: "Lostcasts" asks—obviously someone who's very interested in the podcast already. Damon, "How much is the speculation from your fans on the show, and online in general change or affect the writing of the show? Damon Lindelof: We are very interested in what's happening on the boards. A lot of that is downloaded to us via the writing staff, because obviously we are very busy doing podcasts ourselves, and have no time to monitor the boards. Carlton Cuse: These things take weeks to produce. Damon Lindelof: The reality is, as a former board-junkie myself on other shows, the boards are kind of a really good place to complain. Very often—it's very rare for people to say, "I loved the show and I'm going to go post how much I loved the show." More often than not, people post what they hated about the show. That, unfortunately, can be toxic and get into your head. You start to go, "They hate this, they hate that." The equivalent is, imagine if there was a message called "Lostcasts", where basically I critiqued everything that you did in the course of a day. "I can't believe you got a double-latte at Starbucks! That's idiotic! Those things are bad for you!" Carlton Cuse: "You pigged out on a twinkie, too." Damon Lindelof: That's probably going to affect your purchases the next day. So, we like to put a wall between us and the actual boards. There is a board called TheFuselage.com which I frequent, made up of fans of the show that is more fun and enthusiastic and less on the negative axis. But we're always interested in what the fans are thinking of the show, and what theories they come up with and what they're responding to. It's fun to see how close they are to the truth. Carlton Cuse: I think it is true. Certainly, in terms of the Hatch. And doing the whole orientation film, that was driven by a lot of fan reaction that we weren't giving the audience enough about the Hatch. So we decided that the first three episodes of the show would really download a significant amount of information about the Hatch. That was how we concocted the idea of doing an orientation film. As opposed to having a character spout out a bunch of exposition, we thought this film would be a far better vehicle for getting out a lot of information that does have a lot of information. And The Hanso Foundation is something else that you guys should pay attention to. Damon Lindelof: You should check out that by the way. They have a website, thehansofoundation.org. Carlton Cuse: Good place to go visit. More on that to come. Alright, thank you guys! And we will talk to you soon! Bye, Damon. Damon Lindelof: Bye, Carlton! [End Lost Theme] Kris White: And that concludes our podcast series for now. Please stay tuned to Lost.abc.com for news of future podcasts. 'Til then, namaste. Category:Official Podcasts